"My Dad Called from deer camp..."

[cmhargrove]

Has anyone actually watched an interview with Hillis? The dude is f-in priceless. Last time I saw him in an interview, he had a camo hat on and I thought he was going out to dinner with Larry the Cable Guy. I freakin' love this kid.

Anyway, his dad called from "deer camp" and asked him to get 100 yards for his birthday. Priceless...

From Denverbroncos.com

DENVER -- The Broncos got a nice Thanksgiving present on Sunday by going into New York, playing good football against probably the AFC's hottest team, and coming away with their third consecutive road win.

Denver knocked off the Jets, 34-17, on the strength of a solid all-around effort. Now the team holds a three-game lead in the AFC West with the division-rival Kansas City Chiefs in town next week.

"That is personal always, the rivalry we have there," Brandon Marshall said. "The things they did to us at the beginning of the year -- they are a good team, their record doesn't show it, but we definitely have a challenge coming up on Sunday."

But before we move on to Week 14, let's take a quick look back at Week 13.

A 100-YARD BIRTHDAY GIFT

Six months ago, Peyton Hillis was the last pick of the Broncos' 2008 NFL Draft. In fact, he was No. 227 out of 252 players chosen.

On Sunday, he racked up 126 yards and a touchdown against the NFL's third-ranked rushing defense, led by a possible Defensive Player of the Year candidate in defensive tackle Kris Jenkins.

Head Coach Mike Shanahan, for one, wasn't surprised.

"You could see it coming," he said. "His confidence is coming."

Hillis said he knew he had to make it happen after his father gave him a call Saturday night.

"My dad was at deer camp and he called me," Hillis said. "He goes, 'You know what I want for my birthday? I want 100 yards rushing and two touchdowns.' I heard everything and said, 'Alright Dad, that is for you.' It ended up happening and that is great."

And he almost that second touchdown on a 14-yard scamper, but the score was called back on an offensive holding penalty.

"Well, we still won so it really doesn't matter," he said.

One touchdown, two touchdowns -- either way his teammates were still impressed. Daniel Graham went so far as to say it's a pleasure to block for the rookie.

"I tell you what -- he is a beast," Graham said. "It is fun for us to block for him because we know that he is going to get those extra yards. It is just fun watching him play."

KERN THE DEFENSIVE WEAPON

One of the unsung heroes of the game was Brett Kern. A punter doesn't typically get much attention unless something goes wrong. In this case, it was the exact opposite.

Kern averaged better than 42 yards per punt in the windy and rainy conditions, and he nailed punts that pinned the Jets on their two-yard line, nine-yard line, 14-yard line and 19-yard line.

Landing a punt on the two-yard line is impressive enough, but when the rest of the story is taken into account, it's practically heroic.

After the Broncos were stopped at midfield on their first drive of the second half, the punting unit jogged out onto the rainy field. Kern kept his hands in a hand-warmer and held a towel until the last possible minute, keeping his hands dry to try to field the ball.

Then the snap came -- wide right.

"The conditions were tough and the wind was blowing really hard from left to right," Kern said. "The balls were soaked. It just slipped off of Mike Leach's hands and came out that way."

But Kern reacted quickly and fielded it, and just as a Jets defender was diving toward what looked like an inevitable block, Kern drilled a punt that had a tremendous Denver bounce, and a group of Broncos that included Karl Paymah and Mario Haggan helped down it at the two.

"Coach Shanahan always talked about the biggest thing for us to come in and get the victory was field position, especially when you have Brett Favre at quarterback," Kern said. "The man can do some great things, and we had to pin him back. We had five punts, and four of them were inside the 20 -- that's what we had to do."

MAKING THEIR PRESENCE FELT

As is becoming apparent, there were plenty of players who shined for the Broncos on Sunday. The tight ends held their own in the spotlight.

Tony Scheffler and Graham were the top two receivers for the Broncos in terms of catches on Sunday, and Scheffler led the team in receiving yards as well.

The two combined for 13 catches and 149 yards, and both had their fair share of big plays. Scheffler caught a pass down to the one-yard line, and Graham caught a bubble screen before plowing through defenders on the way to a first down.

"We had some big plays with our tight ends when they double teamed the wide receiver," Shanahan said. "(The Jets) do a great job defensively in taking your top people out of the game. We had to run the football and we had to get some big plays from our tight ends."

Graham said the credit should go to Jay Cutler, who had an enormous game, spreading the ball around to seven receivers for 357 yards and two scores.

"He found us," Graham said. "We got open today and made some big plays when we had to. We look to help this offense out any way we can."